


Sweat, Tears, or the Sea

by octoberburns



Series: Practical Advice for the Modern Magic User [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Curse Breaking, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Slice of Life, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberburns/pseuds/octoberburns
Summary: Tommy didn't know what to expect from his first meeting with a witch; he just needed a curse broken.For Sajha, this is just business as usual—but faeries do like to make things unnecessarily personal.





	Sweat, Tears, or the Sea

The witch’s house wasn’t really what Tommy had been expecting. To start off, it was open and airy: the walls were painted a clean off-white and the ceilings were high, giving him plenty of space to breathe around the hollow in his stomach. Instead of bundles of herbs, jars, and mysterious potions, the living room was decorated with Persian carpets and abstract photography. The furnishings were a mixture of well-kept hand-me-downs and sleek modern pieces that looked suspiciously like they’d come from IKEA. Across from the couch where Tommy was sitting with Miranda and Jason was a slightly worn flatscreen TV; the cabinet next to it held a collection of swashbuckling adventure films and Nintendo games. The place could have belonged to anyone.

But the biggest shock had been the location—sure, he had known from the Centretown address on the battered business card Miranda had dug out of her purse that it wasn’t going to be a cottage in the woods, but a second floor apartment across from a tattoo shop and around the corner from a Chinese grocery was definitely not what he’d pictured.

Of course, the witch hadn’t been anything like he’d imagined either, but he was so attractive that Tommy was having trouble feeling cheated by the experience.

Miranda shifted impatiently on his left side, craning her neck towards the kitchen. “What’s taking him so long?”

“You heard what he said,” Jason said from Tommy’s right. “He’s got other clients, and we didn’t make an appointment. We can’t just expect him to drop everything for us.”

Miranda huffed. “Well, maybe, but this is kind of an emergency!”

Jason shrugged, unruffled as ever despite the awkward way his lanky frame was folded into the seat of the squashy couch they were sharing. “Tommy hasn’t died yet. He’ll probably be okay for the next fifteen minutes.”

“Jason!” Miranda shrieked, appalled, as Tommy burst into surprised laughter between them.

Jason grinned easily, but the flash of relief in his eyes at Tommy’s laughter revealed that he was more worried than he let on. He didn’t mention it, though, which Tommy was grateful for; instead he just shifted in his seat, trying to stretch out a bit without sprawling, and went back to being the reasonable counterpoint to Miranda’s anxiety. “He’ll be out as soon as he can,” he said. “It’s probably not a good idea to rush a witch, anyway. Who knows what he could be working on? If we knew anything about witchcraft we wouldn’t be here.”

“I know, but—” Miranda began, then cast a worried glance at Tommy. Tommy rolled his eyes. Sometimes he couldn’t help but picture her and Jason as the angel and devil on his shoulders, though which of them was which was a point he had never been able to settle on.

He stilled her with a touch to her knee. “Randi, I know you’re worried, but please do me a favour and shut up for a few minutes?” he said. “I’m not exactly chill myself, but seriously, it isn’t helping.”

For a moment Miranda looked like she was going to argue, but then she abruptly shut her mouth, stricken. “Sorry.”

Jason laid his arm across the back of the couch, resting it lightly along the back of Tommy’s neck and squeezing Miranda’s shoulder reassuringly. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said. “You saw the sign on the door—‘curse breaking a specialty.’ This guy is an expert.”

Miranda slid her hand into Tommy’s. “I hope so.”

Tommy was saved from having to reply by sounds of movement in the hallway. The witch emerged from the kitchen, wiping fingerprint smudges of flour onto his tartan apron. He was wearing jeans and a well-fitted Ramones t-shirt; his hair was shaved on one side and dyed a brilliant peacock blue, stark against the warm brown of his skin. Metal decorated his lips and his eyebrow and both of his ears. He had a full mouth, fine cheekbones, and a strong nose with a slight hook to it. Aside from the apron, he looked like the kind of guy Tommy would have flirted with at a concert. The only remotely witchy thing about him was the beaten silver pendant that hung on a leather cord around his neck, decorated with the twists of an elaborate Celtic knot.

He called himself Sajha, but Tommy didn’t think that was his real name—there was no surname on his business card, and Tommy got the impression from the lack of identifying information on his apartment buzzer or lobby mailbox that it was a sensible precaution for any witch to keep their name close to their chest. He had thought it was a girl’s name when he’d first seen it, and had expected, if not a grizzled crone, at least a mature woman. That he had instead gotten this young, handsome man made him uncomfortably aware of how haggard he must look.

Sajha pulled out the desk chair and sat down across from them, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. His vibrant green eyes swept the group, taking in Jason’s awkward posture and Miranda’s clenched fingers and the family resemblance between Tommy and Miranda. Then his gaze settled on Tommy’s face and Tommy felt his already fluttery pulse kick it up a notch or two. He squeezed Miranda’s hand, took a deep breath, and nodded.

“All right. So what’s the problem?” Sajha said. He had a light accent that Tommy couldn’t place. “Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out. I need as much detail as possible if I’m going to be able to help.”

Tommy swallowed, dropping his eyes. “It started last Friday. There was a—a guy. We were at the Lookout,” he clarified. He couldn’t help flicking his eyes to Sajha’s face for his reaction, but the witch’s expression didn’t change; apparently clients who frequented gay bars didn’t ruffle people who worked magic for a living. Finding himself slightly heartened by that, Tommy continued, “We were talking, but I didn’t really like him. I mean, he was pretty, but… it wasn’t a _nice_ pretty, you know? And he was really full of himself.”

Sajha nodded, like that was exactly what he’d expected. “What happened?”

“I turned him down,” Tommy said. “He didn’t like that. He got—kind of nasty.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Nasty” was an understatement, but he didn’t want to think about how much the man had frightened him. He had never seen anyone go from charming to vicious so quickly.

The witch’s eyes were sharp, and he didn’t miss Tommy’s fidgeting. His lips tightened. “What sort of nasty?”

Tommy opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was Miranda who saved him.

“He tried to put something in his drink,” she said. “I saw him.” Even five days later, her eyes still blazed with anger at the memory.

“Did you see what it looked like?” Sajha said. He turned his gaze on her, and for a moment Tommy felt like he could breathe properly again.

She shook her head. “It was pretty dark. I thought it was kind of shaped like a seed, but it could have been anything, you know? He went to a lot of trouble to keep Tommy from seeing it.”

“But you didn’t drink it?” the witch confirmed, looking back at him.

“No. Miranda signalled me.” Catching the quirk of Sajha’s brows, Tommy shrugged. “A guy tried to drug her once, so we worked out some signs just in case. I couldn’t see anything in my glass, but I wasn’t about to drink it after that. Not that I wanted to stick around anyway.”

“So what did you do?”

Despite himself, despite the fear still tugging at his chest, Tommy felt a grin pulling at his lips. “Threw the drink in his face.” Even now, the audacity of it amazed him; he wasn’t sure how he’d found the guts.

For the first time, Sajha’s eyes went wide and he let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, I can see why he was pissed. I’m impressed,” he said, chuckling. “It’s not every day I see someone get cursed for something that nervy.”

Tommy did his best not to flush. “You can get rid of it, right?”

“Almost certainly, but I have to know what he did,” the witch said. Just a moment to catch his breath and he was all business again. “What have you been living with since last Friday?”

“I can’t eat anything,” Tommy said. “Or even drink anything, really. I can keep water down, but only just. It’s awful. I thought it was just a bad hangover at first, but…” He shrugged. Two doctors and an emergency room nurse had all, with increasingly puzzled expressions, pronounced him perfectly healthy. He still couldn’t get any food down. By this point the hunger was so steady that it had just become a fact of his person.

“Do you remember what he said?” Sajha asked. “Word for word, I mean?”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah. ‘May all your food turn to ash in your mouth.’ I thought it was a weird way to say you hated someone, but then he left and I was so relieved that I just didn’t really think about it anymore.”

“But it hasn’t literally been turning to ash?” the witch said.

“No. It just tastes like shit.”

“Miranda brought him over to my place yesterday to see if we could come up with something,” Jason added. “After the doctors got nowhere. We tried to force him to choke some food down anyway. He spent an hour throwing up in the bathroom and we figured we’d better find another solution.”

The witch nodded, sitting back. “It’s a classic curse. It won’t kill you, at least not for a while, but it’s a hell of an effective punishment.” He rubbed at the line of his jaw thoughtfully. “Luckily, it’s also pretty easy to remove. Just be glad you didn’t cross a curse worker.”

“I thought you just said he was cursed,” Miranda said, her nose wrinkling in confusion. “Was that not a curse worker?”

Sajha shook his head. “All faeries can cast curses, but most of them only ever bother with the easy ones—ruining your food, making things wither at your touch, general misfortune, stuff like that. The ones who call themselves ‘curse workers’ are the specialists. They usually have a signature method, and they’re bloody inventive.” He made a face, then shrugged. “Fortunately for you, it sounds like you only pissed off a minor noble. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still dangerous, but they’re a lot easier to clean up after.”

For a long moment, Tommy didn’t say anything. He’d had his suspicions about his attacker’s true nature, but they hadn’t really sunk in until the witch confirmed them so casually. And the way Sajha talked about it, as if it was normal, as if faeries and spirits were just part of everyday life… well, they were part of his everyday life, weren’t they? Tommy had always known there were witches who could sling curses just as easily as others broke them—everyone knew that—but somehow this wasn’t the same. He couldn’t decide if that was terrifying, or just unfathomable.

He sighed. “He really was a faery, huh?”

“He really was,” Sajha said. He smiled. “I know, it’s sort of hard to believe, isn’t it?”

Tommy laughed. “I’m sitting on a witch’s couch,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t get much weirder than that.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Sajha said, but he was grinning. He got up from the chair and smoothed his apron down. “Come into the kitchen. I’ll get you fixed up.”

“It won’t take long?”

The witch shook his head. “Just a few minutes. Your sister and your friend can wait here.”

Tommy squeezed Miranda’s hand one last time and she let him go, curling in on herself and watching him anxiously. Jason nodded to him and shifted over on the couch, putting his arm around her shoulders and allowing her to lean on him. Tommy smiled wanly. “Back in a sec,” he said, and followed Sajha into the kitchen.

This room looked a bit more like what he’d expected from a witch’s home: the table was clean scrubbed oak, the cabinets were dark wood, and there were glass jars of herbs and powders arranged all along the counter, the windowsill, and the top of the fridge. By the window was a short bookcase holding cookbooks, spell books, handwritten notes, and several potted plants. A cast iron saucepan sat on the stove, simmering quietly and emitting a smoky, spicy aroma as its contents slowly boiled themselves down.

“Take a seat,” Sajha said. Tommy obeyed, watching as the witch moved around the kitchen. He set water to boil in a stainless steel kettle, then took a large earthenware mug down from a cupboard and put a tea strainer in it, filling it to the brim with dried yellow flowers emptied from a jar on the windowsill.

“Fair warning,” he said, glancing up at Tommy. “You’re probably not going to like this.”

Tommy snorted amicably. “I’ll probably like it more than I like starving.”

“True enough,” the witch said. The water came to a boil; he poured it into the mug, setting the flowers to floating gently in the metal strainer. While it was steeping, he went to the fridge and pulled out a container of something dark and wet, extracting a piece. Immediately the metallic smell of blood assaulted Tommy’s nostrils and he almost retched right there.

Sajha cast him an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

“God, what are you feeding me?” Tommy said from behind his hand, trying not to gag.

“Liver.” Sajha had pulled a small cutting board from under the counter and was chopping the organ into a fine mince. “It’s high in iron, which means it’ll help expel the faery influence from your body.” He lifted the strainer from the mug, leaving a fresh, clear yellow tea, and promptly ruined its colour by scraping the liver into it. Tommy looked on in horror.

“Ugh, that’s awful,” he groaned. The thought of eating anything was enough to make his stomach turn over—let alone something that smelled like that.

The witch looked, if possible, even more apologetic. “That’s not even the worst part,” he said. Picking up a large spoon, he opened a jar whose contents were piled in fluffy white clumps, too soft to be sugar and too jagged to be flour.

“What is that?”

“‘The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea,’” Sajha said. “Have you ever heard that? It’s Isak Dinesen. Not entirely accurate, but it covers the important bases. This is salt evaporated from the north Atlantic. My teacher swears it’s the most powerful stuff in the world.” He scooped out a heaping spoonful, dumping it into the tea, and looked up at Tommy. “You’re _really_ not going to like this.”

He was right. Even after he’d stirred it, the tea was more of a thick sludge—an unappetizing yellow, shot through with the dark, bloody red of the liver. Tommy stared at it for a long moment, considering the possibility that this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. But even if it was, he’d come this far—and he was really sick of being hungry all the time. He held his breath, plugged his nose, and choked it down.

Even with those precautions it was overwhelmingly vile. Any floral sweetness was crowded out by the blood-butter taste of liver, and even that was largely drowned in pure, choking salt. Tommy almost gagged, then forced himself to swallow the rest of it before doubling over, desperately trying not to throw up. He wondered if the cure would still work if it was too disgusting to keep down.

Distantly he felt Sajha’s hand rubbing circles on his back. “Easy,” the witch murmured. “Just let it pass.”

Tommy didn’t trust himself to reply. His stomach roiled violently. He was sick and feverish. His head was burning and he was dripping sweat. He felt like he was going to die.

And then suddenly it was over. He sat up cautiously, looking up at Sajha; the witch hadn’t moved, and his hand was still resting on Tommy’s back. He was smiling.

“Better?” he said.

The hollow nausea that had been sitting in Tommy’s stomach since Saturday morning was gone. Instead he was ravenously hungry. For the first time in almost a week the idea of putting food in his mouth didn’t make him feel ill.

“I’m _starving_ ,” he said.

Sajha laughed. “There’s a café just down Somerset. I could take you—they do great sandwiches.”

Tommy was giddy with relief and riding high on their success, and before his brain could catch up with his mouth he was saying, “Are you asking me on a date?”

The witch’s smile was impish. “I might be. You still owe me for that cure, after all—buy me lunch and we’ll call it even.”

Tommy bit back a grin. “Deal,” he said.

Jason and Miranda were never going to let him hear the end of this.

* * *

At eight o’clock, Ardeshir locked his door, flipped the sign in his window to “closed,” and stopped being Sajha for the night.

He had spent nearly an hour at lunch with Tommy and his friends. In theory he should have been working, but that was the beauty of being his own boss: as long as he didn’t have any clients booked, he could take as much time off as he wanted. An impromptu date with a cute guy had seemed like the perfect way to spend an afternoon—and he doubted he’d have gotten much work done anyway.

Besides, he had professional reasons for wanting to keep a close watch on Tommy. Faeries could be vicious, and the twenty-four hours after breaking a curse were always the most dangerous.

But lunch had passed without incident, and when no faeries had shown up to disrupt the quiet atmosphere of the café Ardeshir had started to relax. Still, he had brought them back to his apartment and fixed up charm bags for the three of them—a heavy, powerful one for Tommy and smaller ones for the other two, just in case—and made them promise to keep them close for the next month at least.

He had also given Tommy his number; admittedly, that was mostly for selfish reasons.

They went home, and the rest of the day went by without any unexpected interruptions. Ardeshir hummed as he shifted the molasses on his stove to the back burner, setting a pot of water to boil for spaghetti. He made pesto as the late summer sun sank below the horizon, and ate at his kitchen table, watching out the window as the lights of Chinatown came alive. It had been a good day.

He was washing his dishes when he heard a light scrape at his front door. He paused, shutting off the faucet and gently setting his plate down in the sink. The sound repeated itself, and this time he was able to identify it: someone was trying to turn his doorknob—hard—and grinding the locking mechanism against itself. He made an exasperated noise, dropping the scrub brush on top of the plate, and stalked out into the hallway.

“Sign says I’m closed,” he called through the door as he undid the deadbolt. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. If it’s an emergency, ring the bell, otherwise make an appointment—”

He swung the door open. There was no one outside.

Frowning, he smoothed his fingers down the doorframe and felt for the wards he had embedded there. They hadn’t been disturbed, but someone had definitely been at his door—someone aside from Tommy and his sister and their friend, aside from the other clients he had had that day. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the staircase for any hidden interlopers. “I don’t appreciate being played with,” he said in a warning tone. “It’s not a good idea to piss off a witch.”

Nothing moved; no one emerged. Warily he shut the door, locking it once more and sliding the deadbolt home, pushing a surge of power out of his fingertips to strengthen the wards as he did so. He felt them settle around his apartment and relaxed fractionally, making his way back to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes.

He was nearly done when he suddenly became aware of a presence behind him. There was no sound, nothing to alert him to it, but he felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck and he _knew_. He turned around, slamming a pot down on the counter, and for a moment was directionless in his fury when no target presented itself, but then his focus adjusted and he saw the man sitting cross-legged on the roof outside his kitchen window.

No, not a man. A faery.

Ardeshir hissed between his teeth and grabbed a knife from the drainboard.

“What do you want?” he snapped. “You can’t come in. Even if I gave my permission, which I don’t, you really don’t want to test my wards.”

The faery’s eyes—already ice-cold and glittering like diamonds—hardened at that, fixing on the knife. “You broke my curse,” he said, voice flat. “You had no right. I demand satisfaction.”

Ardeshir was pretty sure he knew which curse that was, but he was hardly about to say so. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” he said. “I break a lot of curses. It’s literally my job.”

“This was not a job you should have taken, mortal.”

“You think this is the first time I’ve been threatened by one of your kind?” Ardeshir said. He flipped the knife once and caught it, the wooden handle a satisfyingly solid weight in his hand. “Go ahead. Try me. I know how to deal with the Good People.”

The faery dragged his gaze up to Ardeshir’s face, lips pulling back in a sneer, but he didn’t say anything. Ardeshir laughed.

“That’s what I thought. Now, if you want something from me, say it outright, or go away.”

For a long moment the faery didn’t reply, and Ardeshir almost hoped he’d actually leave, but then he smiled winsomely, tilting his head like a cat. “What’s your name, mortal?”

Ardeshir snorted. “Really? You’re actually going to try that? No,” he said, shaking his head decisively. “This is my home; I make the rules. Call me Sajha.”

“Sajha,” the faery said, testing it out. It had no ring of power when it rolled off his tongue, and Ardeshir didn’t move. The faery sighed, not bothering to conceal his disappointment. “A shame. Oh, what I could do with your true name—”

“And _that_ is why I don’t use it,” Ardeshir interrupted. “Now, are you going to ask for something, or are you going to go? I have no patience for the Folk’s mind games on the best of days.”

“I want my vengeance, mortal,” the faery said. “You took it from me, and I want it back.” His voice was soft, but his eyes were hard again, his lips sharp. He looked like cut crystal, as pale as the dawn, and Ardeshir had no trouble seeing why Tommy had turned him down in the first place. Faery beauty was ethereal and painful to the touch.

Ardeshir had always preferred the roughness of mortality. “I don’t trade in vengeance,” he said bluntly.

The faery scoffed. “Do you think you can stop me?”

“Yes, actually, I do,” Ardeshir snapped. He gestured with the knife. “Look around. Do I look helpless to you? I’m a _witch_. How do you think I broke your curse in the first place?”

The glare the faery levelled at him was so hateful it was nearly palpable. “I wanted to watch him die a slow and painful death,” he hissed, “but perhaps I could settle for your quick and messy one instead.”

Faeries, Ardeshir thought, always ready to kill for the slightest offence. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“You will settle for nothing,” he said. “You cast a curse; I broke it. There are no rules against that. You can’t have me, and you certainly can’t have him. He refused you three times. You can make no claim over him.”

For a moment the faery’s gaze was terrifying in its rage, but then his eyes turned calculating and he leaned in, pressing his hand against the window screen. “So that’s it, then,” he cooed. It was the most dangerous his voice had yet sounded. “You won’t let me claim him because you want to claim him for yourself.” He chuckled low in his throat, his lips cracking into a grin that showed sharper teeth than it should have. “He’s so pretty, isn’t it? Pretty, pretty Thomas with his walnut-brown skin and his eyes as dark as midnight. Tell me, witch, do you think I can’t find him again?”

Ardeshir kept a tight rein on his expression, didn’t show the fear that flickered through him at the thought. Sometimes he wondered if it was really worth it, dating people who didn’t know how protect themselves from the things he faced down every day. It would be on him if Tommy got tangled up in this. Would he ever forgive himself if he couldn’t keep him safe?

But that was the point of being a witch: he _could_ keep people safe. Not everyone—not even the whole city—but everyone in his reach. And after he had pulled a curse from Tommy’s belly, shared lunch with him, put his name and number in his phone—well, he was as much in his reach as anyone.

Ardeshir smiled.

“I’ve already claimed him,” he said. “He’s under my protection now. And if you think I haven’t taken precautions against you coming after him, you’re more foolish than I thought.” He took a step forward, raising his knife. “I know what I’m doing, faery. You won’t be touching him again without going through me first.”

The faery snarled. “So be it!” he cried, fingers convulsing. Claws that hadn’t been there a moment before scored lines into the screen, and he tore at the holes in a frenzy.

“Do not _test_ me, asshole!” Ardeshir roared. His wards, responding to the threat, rose up around him, and the kitchen dimmed despite the lights that still glowed overhead. “This is my _home!_ ”

For a moment nothing happened, and then the faery shrieked and spasmed as an arc of energy shot through him, leaving the fresh scent of ozone hanging in the air. Ardeshir wasted no time. With his left hand he reached out, knocking the lid from a jar and grabbing a fistful of its contents. He stalked forward, pressing his knife to the intruder’s jugular; the faery shrieked again, and when he recoiled his neck was marked by a burn in the shape of the blade. Ardeshir ignored it, taking advantage of the faery’s open mouth to fling a handful of salt into his face. The faery stumbled back, choking and coughing and clawing at his throat.

“Go,” Ardeshir hissed as the shadows deepened around him, “before I do something you won’t recover from. You have no power here.”

The faery hesitated, torn between saving his own skin and getting the revenge he wanted, and Ardeshir snarled outright. “This is your last warning. _Get out!_ ”

He fled.

Ardeshir waited, counting in his head. A minute passed, then two, then three, and his wards uncoiled, the shadows retreating from the kitchen. He sagged, dropping the knife and rubbing a hand over his eyes, then stepped forward to slam the window shut.

“Motherfuck,” he muttered, and reached into his pocket for his phone.

He scrolled through his contacts to Tommy’s name and hit the call button, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Tommy picked up on the second ring, and Ardeshir felt the tension ease out of his shoulders. He relaxed. He was safe.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s Sajha. I just wanted to check how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” Tommy said, sounding faintly breathless and utterly charmed. “You fixed me up good. We had a huge dinner, my mom is so relieved.”

“You’re keeping that protection charm on you?” Ardeshir pressed.

“Yep,” Tommy said. Ardeshir heard a faint rustling, then the jingle of the bag being shaken. “Right here. I had it in my pocket all day and I’m putting it under my pillow tonight, just like you said.”

“Good,” Ardeshir said, his voice catching slightly. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Are you okay?” Tommy said, suddenly sounding worried. “Did something happen?”

Ardeshir touched his cheek and realized he was crying, startling himself into a laugh. Sweat, tears, or the sea, he reminded himself. “Yeah, I’m all right,” he said. “Nothing I can’t handle. You should get some sleep, I don’t want to keep you.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Honest,” Ardeshir said, his lips pulling into a smile. “Just call me if anything happens, yeah?”

“I will,” Tommy said. “Goodnight.”

“Sleep well,” Ardeshir murmured, and ended the call.

For a long moment he stared out the window into the darkness of the night. He’d made an enemy tonight, and there were others out there—more faeries, other witches, spirits of all kinds. None of them liked having their curses broken. But that was just part of the job; he’d known that when he went into business. He’d made sure he could take care of himself—and if things got really dire, he had friends he could call on. Tommy would be okay.

For now, his biggest concern was a practical one: he’d have to get the screen repaired.

“Asshole,” he muttered, and turned back to the dishes.


End file.
